Fluid Mechanics for Chemical Engineering

Preface

This book is mainly about fluid mechanics, but it is first intended to MSc and professionals who need to make use of fluid mechanics skills for applications pertaining to chemical and process engineering. This objective explains the presentation of fluid mechanics as given in this book. The foundations of the discipline are generally not set out, but the book endeavours to help students and professionals to use the tools of fluid mechanics in a pertinent way, while attempting to point out the key ideas associated with the concepts encountered.

As an example, the ability to use Navier-Stokes equations appropriately is more important, to most practitioners, than the ability to prove them. It is of course very interesting to have reflected upon that proof at some point, but this can be found in other books, and this is not the intended objective of this book. Besides, I will be very happy if this book can prove useful for specialists in fluid mechanics, giving them the opportunity to discover important applications of fluid mechanics in the field of chemical engineering.

The book is divided into three parts.

The first part is about the basics of fluid mechanics. Emphasis is on general theorems that constitute the tools used in the first instance by engineers. Chapter 2 forms the main foundation of that part, which then branches into short chapters tackling the key notions implemented by a specialist in process engineering (hydraulic circuits, pumps, rheometry, etc.). The ...